This has been a long time coming.
The streaming service that I have been using for
several years now is going out of business.
It’s not just Live 365 either, all of the streaming services
are closing shop.
What happened was this…the five year agreement between the
entities that govern streaming costs and reimbursements to
artists and performers and the Radio Streaming Services
themselves, like Live365, changed.
For years the agreement allowed for smaller services who could
not afford to pay for each song played to allow a percentage of
their profits to cover the fees.
Real Radio Stations, and Pay-to-Hear web based services like
Pandora have always paid a fee based on how many times the
song was played versus the amount of listeners.
Live 365 and similar services could not afford to do that,
instead they were given the option of paying a certain
percentage of the profits made from the streaming itself.
Fair enough, the system worked quite well, the artists and
composer may not have made a lot of money from the smaller
entities but it was a good arrangement because it allowed for
some payment to be made but it also created an opportunity
for the artist to get exposure…a win-win situation in my
humble opinion.
The powers that be did not renew that option.
As it stands now only the biggest entities like Pandora
will survive, they are the only streaming services that can
afford to pay the top tier (now, the only tier) fees.
There are those out there that believe it will benefit the
artists to do this, I am not one of them.
Oh sure, the top artists will make a little more from this
new approach but the smaller, less well known, artist will get
less airtime than ever before.
At the end of this month Live 365, and just about everyone else,
will be closing their doors for good.
I will continue to broadcast on my long time radio station
here in town but I will no longer be streaming on the net.
If this situation changes I will let all of you know.
I am hoping that it does, but I’m not too optimistic.
Thank you for understanding AND for all the wonderful years
that you’ve listened to Comedy 101 Radio, I appreciate it
immensely, THANK YOU!
Any questions by all means drop me a line at…
michael@comedy101radio.com
It will be good to hear from you!

Michael Davidson
Host: Comedy 101 Radio